Unrequited
by wretchedheartbreak
Summary: England comes home after the fight in the Revolutionary War, into the arms of his only remaining son, whose concern for him is much too heavy. However, it is at this moment that Canada learns the most important epiphany of all.


_**Some nights I can hear you screaming over something that he did.**_

Restless, gray clouds pooled in the sky grumbling and roaring, their hell-bent fury comparable only to the jealous rage of a lover's angst towards their love's mistress. Thunder clapped and lightning boomed, gleefully cackling in their mischievous delight over a night so long, a dark dampening of the morning sun that had initiated much too early that day. It was as though malice tainted the very air that he breathed in, suffocation within suffocation; the tension already predetermined in the air coming to terms with yet another seemingly predictable violent wave of events that would soon collide with the already precarious house. The loud noises were abrupt but malevolent, reaching out to grab him, if only to quickly recoil in their teasing foreplay, a lulling temptation laughably comparable to his present circumstances. Nature itself poked fun at his exuding dread, at the fragile collapse of his friable mind, which at that moment replayed the nights prior to thus.

Insufferably cold in the freezing temperature, he clenched his pale fist against the white mattress of the pillow, recounting the echoing, heart-wrenching cries that bellowed from his blonde and emerald-eyed caretaker… and brother. A week had passed prior, but the looming, vile clouds that brought with them the spiteful intent of burying the smiling sun's face continued to idle around, such as that one could not glance out pallid windows without sighting the earth-crumbling roar of the venomous thunder. Children squealed and dogs whined in fear, voices easily lapsed by the cruel sound, but in those nights passed, there was a sound much crueller still. Despite the white, heavily-painted and beautifully aesthetic walls that separated him from the blonde, he could – _would _– always resign himself to the shouts of pain from the blonde, shouts that would echo just as painfully in his heart, but if for a different reason. It would no sooner stop, than be replaced with howling sobs and erratic breaths that somehow miraculously – if one could call gut-wrenching sorrow _miraculous_ – sang in sync with the gruelling storm that only grew in strength and tremor outside. Despite the pillow that the blonde pressed straight clear to his mouth to muffle the agonizing tears, he could hear it nonetheless. The reason behind his tears was as clear to him as there was to be a flood from the abhorrent storm outside.

America.

Unfocused, indigo hues opened quickly, supernatural colours of light that barely illuminated the darkened room. Haunted by the insomnia that plagued him for a week through the expense of his caretaker's blatant sorrow, the teenager sat up in bed, crimson lips growing ever deeper in color as unblemished teeth bit on them, fingers twining and shifting nervously as he awaited the arrival of the blonde that had promised return that evening at the stroke of midnight. 'Twas no mystery what was to transpire, and despite uncontrollable urges of anxiety, it was laced with possible excitement.

America would be back.

A silent creak of the door, again somehow miraculously audible over the violent storm, jolted him awake, as though an electrical shock had been administered straight through his very core. His own wooden door slammed open, and thudded footsteps made their way down the spiral, circular stairs of the grandiose mansion, glasses slightly askew from the rush to meet the arrival of two peoples… but as the storms had predicted, it was not meant to be so. Violet eyes were greeted only with the red uniform of the blonde, blood oozing through random patches of the cloth, the man in them limping unsteadily as the tears of rain soaked him to the bone.

"**England!**"

Warm arms intertwined around a cold but still barely-breathing body, and the teen frowned with worried eyes as he tugged the gentleman onto the closest sofa, which too, absorbed the watery droplets with ease. Despite soothing attempt to lay him on his back, the blonde remained in a rigid posture, as though one false movement would collapse the entire world of whose fate he had hung up on his shoulders bitterly over the course of a week's past. Curious urges nagged at him, but they were urges that could wait. A breath of silence passed between them, and the teenager, with practiced, unblemished fingers pried the bloodied clothing – with sheer difficulty – from the male, who still sat, unfazed by the jostling movements. A sky blue towel whistled through the air nonchalantly, oblivious to the touchable tension in the air, as it wrapped itself around the blonde's naked chest, shuddering as the warmth of the object registered into his senses for what would have been the first time.

The reaction shed light on the hope of conversation, despite how minimal, and a soft, almost feminine voice distorted the far-from amiable silence.

"**E-England…? What… where's America?**"

Somehow the spoken word provoked a pang of… _jealousy _that clawed and fed on his heart, a feeling to which he could not comprehend the origins of. However, it provoked within the blonde a more urgent, visible reaction, as tears sprinkled down his cheeks from his green eyes, eyes of which he'd never personally seen to shed a tear for another. The sudden cry and movement had however, elicited the opening of a few fresh, tender bruises, and the teenager's eyes widened in urgency.

"**E-eh? I-I'm sorry, I'm sorry! L-let me see…**"

Despite his harried apologies, the blonde remained unfazed, but it was not to deter him from giving care to that of whom he'd taken care from. Cold fingers now, they expertly plucked out white, fresh gauzes from the first-aid kit that harmlessly arrived next to the two, twirling it around pointer fingers as panicked, purple eyes grimaced in horror at the diagonal flesh wound from which a pool of blood was trickling from.

"**H-hold on. Th-this might hurt a bit!**"

The teenager reached forward as though for an embrace with the older man, to wrap the gauze around his torso to staunch the bleeding. However, upon an accidental twitch of his lacklustre body, his indigo eyes met briefly with green ones – but it was a second that burdened him much too heavily.

For what he saw, he saw with a heart-shattering pang. The emerald eyes, so full of life, were now clouded, weighted with a burden that now also filled the blonde's internal void. Lifeless, they could be called, staring but unseeing at the responsible actions of the teenager, not once flinching from contact with his frozen skin. A question came to mind, a naïve question despite his mind's protests; had there been an internal wound as well?

"**E-England, are you a-alright?**"

…

An epiphany flooded the teenager as tears commenced their own mission within his indigo orbs as he jolted from the blonde's vicinity, electrocuted by the insight. He'd seen it numerous times before.

How the blonde's eyes would sparkle in delight when the previous inhabitant would lounge about waiting for his return. How the blonde's face would crack into a smile when the previous inhabitant would commit a mischievous act out of childish naivety. How the blonde's mood would visibly lighten when the previous inhabitant would barely wrap chubby arms around his neck in an embrace.

How these emotions were reserved for his one favourite.

How these emotions were never as lovingly gifted for himself as it had been for the other.

It was a horrible enlightenment of which he had stumbled upon. The internal wound was not for the other; rather, it had been cast upon his own heart.

Tears crackled in the corners of his eyes as the rain continued its ignorant pouring outside, and the teen slumped with shoulders tense in front of the blonde, who seemed to be carved by stone – a marble Adonis in his eyes, completely oblivious to the emotional breakdown experienced by his other child. White, shaking hands covered the entirety of his face – but only barely – as barely muffled sobs passed through, glistening water droplets squeezing through the slits of the slender digits.

He was a fool.

He had heard those cries in the past week of his twin's absence, but had dismissed them as the sorrow he had equally experienced, but not to as much of an extent.

He had seen it in the gaunt, haggard look on the blonde's face when he entered the door. He had seen the flash of emotion as the blue towel, whose hue matched that of his twin's eyes, was wrapped around the blonde's shoulders. He had seen a brief sparkle of light when the blonde instinctively drew it closer to his shoulders, before retracting back to his shelter of unawareness.

Love.

He needn't interrogate the blonde. Tears dripped rhythmically on to the cold, ceramic floor when gripped with the painful, gut-wrenching realization. The love that had been so equally shared among the twins was not so proportional, after all. A round share of pie of which ninety-nine percent had been devoted to the blue-eyed twin, a heart-breaking one percent reserved for him. It was a love he was never meant to see, never meant to be smothered with. He had been much too idiotic, much too shielded to come to terms with the sad, mocking truth, a truth that now rolled its cruel eyes at him for the obviousness of it all.

Tears sparkled fervently as his muffled sobs now rose to volumes that crashed and overpowered the thundering clouds outside. He would never replace his brother, and he would never be able to pry from _him _a candid smile. But the most heart-shattering reality of it was that he knew that the blonde knew that. After all, it was for his twin that the blonde had cried soul-shattering howls for, not him.

Never for him, and he was a pretentious fool to ever believe otherwise.

Somewhere in the recesses of his dark, hollowed mind, he uttered:

_But I'm here, too…_

_**But you should know, when it gets too cold, you're not alone. I'll melt the snow.**_

* * *

><p>Umm, since I'm on a roll with tragedy and angst, thought I'd put out more tragedy and angst! c: Please do review, and the lyrics at the beginning and end are inspired by Melt the Snow by Shayne Ward.<p>

Thanks!~


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